Unknown Device: Sony DVD Burner

[mace07]

Hi folks,

This one's confusing me. I recently got a new PC and gave my old one
to my dad. I spent yesterday setting it up. It's a dell pc -- PIII
450, 384 RAM, XP SP2. It has a Sony DVD burner and a CD-RW drive as
well, both of which I installed last year. They both worked fine up
until a couple of months ago. I had forgotten they weren't working
until I got the PC up and running for my dad yesterday, at which point
i tried to figure out why they wouldn't work. Neither the CD-RW nor
the DVD would burn. They both can read CDs but not CD-RWs. They show
up in My Computer, but when i checked the device manager, they show up
under "Unknown Device" with their respective device names. Again, they
used to work and I never changed the drivers. I then removed both
drives and hooked up the regular CD drive from my dad's old computer
and it worked perfectly. but it's not a burner.

anyone got any ideas? would the scenario above be caused simply by a
lack of the correct drivers (not sure why they would have disappeared)?
i don't see how they could read CDs but not CD-RWs if it's caused by
the drivers.

any help on this one is greatly appreciated.

 

[Bubba]

Make sure the box in properties that says allow CD burning is checked.

I just replaced a DVD rom drive with a burner in my ASUS Pundit and it
didn't recognize the drive properly until I inserted a disk and pushed the
button on the front. Really wierd huh?

 

[Kenny]

Try deleting them from Device Manager and re-booting, Windows will find them
and re-install drivers.
Neither will work as a recordable drive unless you have burning software
installed.

 

[Guest]

ok
The drivers are most likely missing. Just reinstall them.
any number of things could of made the drivers go away from a uninstall
deleating 2 much or spyware or adware to a virus those all will do what ever
they want to make you misserable get teh drivers from the install disk that
came with the burners